A collection of pleasure products, goods, and services found in Panama City, Panama, curated by pleasure concierge Deborah Porter, with sensual articles and essays.
Pleasure Spotlight
How Lust Is Keeping the Art of Burlesque Alive
There's a moment every burlesque show has — the lights dim, a single spotlight finds the stage. For a few seconds the whole room holds its breath before losing themselves in the story, the costumes and the performers. Amber Lust built her life around this moment. For seven years, she's made sure it happens, year after year, in a country that wasn't always sure it wanted it to be shown at all.
2027 will mark the 8th anniversary of the Panama Burlesque Festival (PBF), the show Lust created, directs, and has fought to keep alive — and it's as good a time to ask the question how her name keeps rising around Panama City's pleasure-culture scene: who is Amber Lust and why burlesque?
First, What Is Burlesque (And What It Isn't)
Before we get to Amber's story, let’s take a quick look at exactly what is burlesque — because the art is constantly mistaken for things it isn't. With sadly many wrongly assuming Burlesque and porn are the same. But Burlesque is a theatrical art form built on a tradition of tease, satire, comedy, and glamour, with roots going back to 19th-century music halls, where it began as playful parody of "serious" theater. It is not stripping, and it's not pornography. It is a skilled craft in the reveal, the storytelling, the costumes, and the wit, not just the body. Think of vintage glamour and showmanship more than nightclub. The art form nearly faded in the mid-20th century, then came roaring back starting in the 1990s in what's now called the "neo-burlesque" movement. And now, burlesque is experiencing a revival shaped heavily by feminist and LGBTQ+ communities, who turned it into a more diverse and inclusive art form than its earlier eras.
That rebirth hasn't slowed down. One industry market analysis estimated the global burlesque show market at roughly $1.2 billion in 2025, projected to keep growing through the next decade. This growth is driven in part by audiences (especially younger ones) seeking live, glamorous, in real life (IRL) experiences that can't be scrolled past on a phone or experienced via AI. So, the question is, is the art dying or thriving? Most signs point to the latter — and festivals like Lust’s are a part of why.